City slammed for neglect of Island's health needs

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With no city hospital on Staten
Island, borough residents with little or no medical
insurance are expected to swamp Staten Island's two
private hospitals in record numbers as the deepening
economic crisis triggers layoffs and health-benefits cuts.

Emergency rooms at Staten Island University Hospital and
Richmond University Medical Center are already bursting at
the seams.

While city officials have taken some steps to ease the
mounting medical crisis, including plans to build two new
clinics here over the next few years, there is a growing cry
for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city Health and
Hospitals Corporation (HHC) to fund Staten Island comparably
to the other boroughs.

"We're taking on the burden [of providing health
care to the uninsured and underinsured], and the people of
Staten Island are taking that on and not getting
services," said Dr. Theodore Strange, associate
chairman of medicine at Staten Island University Hospital
and a former member of HHC's board of directors.

"All they are trying to do is defeated by putting
Band-Aids on a gaping wound," he said of HHC, which
oversees the public health care system in all five boroughs.
"The people of Brooklyn deserve the best health care,
the people of the Bronx deserve the best health care and the
people of Staten Island deserve the best health care."

In 2006, Staten Island's two hospitals served
uninsured patients nearly 112,500 times, the most recent
year for which figures are available, according to the state
Health Department. At University Hospital alone, those
treatments (some patients received care more than once) cost
the hospital about $24 million a year, said John Demoleas, a
spokesman. The hospital is reimbursed only about $5 million,
he said.

Jennifer Sammartino, a Richmond University Medical Center spokeswoman said the hospital provides about $17 million in uninsured patient care each year....